Samantha Morton

LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 03: Actress Samantha Morton arrives at the AFI FEST screening of "The Messenger" at the Chinese Theater on November 3, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for AFI) less

LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 03: Actress Samantha Morton arrives at the AFI FEST screening of "The Messenger" at the Chinese Theater on November 3, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty ... more

Photo: Kevin Winter, Getty Images For AFI

Samantha Morton

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"The Messenger," directed and co-written by Oren Moverman, is up for Oscars for best original screenplay and best supporting actor (Woody Harrelson). The sometimes delicate, sometimes rough-edged film follows Will, a returning vet (played by Ben Foster) assigned to Casualty Notification duty under the rugged mentorship of a veteran officer (Harrelson). The film also navigates the very tricky path of a budding relationship between Will and new Army widow Olivia (two-time Oscar nominee Samantha Morton), with all its false starts and resonant awkwardness. Morton talked by phone last month about the movie.

Q:Olivia has such strong emotional currents coursing through her, pushing her in different directions.

A: It's really, really hard. You read the script and half of you wants to disbelieve that a woman (in that situation) could feel something for someone else. ... Is that wrong, is it obscene, is it disrespectful, what is that? The only way I could approach it was that it could happen at any time in your life. You could be very happy, you could be married with children, and one day you walk down the street and you meet the person you're going to spend the rest of your life with. So that was the approach of looking at how and why Olivia then had the feelings she had for Will. I thought it was very delicately handled. You don't see the couple consummating those feelings. They're respectful of one another and, in a sense, the deceased.

Q:I was especially impressed by the kitchen scene, which I found honest and simple; there was beautiful nonverbal stuff in it.

A: That scene was shot without camera rehearsal. What Oren wanted to do was give us the freedom - almost like a play - so the actors could have space and didn't have to break it down into 15 different shots and close-ups and over-the-shoulders and tracking. Whilst we were more than happy and prepared to do that, Oren knew what he wanted and when he got the scene and was happy with it, he said, "That's it, we got it, we're moving on."

And I have to say sometimes the chemistry between actors can be fantastic and sometimes it's a real "acting job." I think Ben and I have incredible chemistry; I think, we work very, very well together. You can see that in that scene. We didn't have six weeks together or anything like that; it was just very good casting as well. It worked.

Q:What's your favorite scene?

A: I think the scene with Ben and Woody when they're having the huge talk about what happened to (Will) and they're sitting on the sofa - that just breaks me. Even thinking about it gets me very, very upset. My brother Marcus was a Marine for a very long time; he worked in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those worries one has about family members, they never go away. My family were military, so it's very close to my heart. Describing what happened, just the loneliness of those men, I just think it's beautifully, poetically portrayed. And the intimacy of their relationship is beautiful.